Solus Unit to Build $500 Million Quebec Plant for EV Battery Components

A unit of South Korea’s Solus Advanced Materials Co. will revive an old plant in Canada to produce copper foils for electric vehicle batteries, with significant financial help from governments.Volta Energy Solutions announced a C$750 million ($550 million) investment in Granby, Quebec, east of Montreal. The plant is expected to have the capacity to produce copper components for as many as 2.5 million vehicles in North America eventually, according to an emailed statement.

Quebec’s provincial government will provide a C$150 million loan, to be partly forgiven if the firm meets conditions such as maintaining 260 jobs at the plant.

“Without incentives, factories will be built elsewhere,” Quebec Premier Francois Legault said during a press conference Tuesday, adding that every given dollar must “bring in more than a dollar.”

South Korean firms have been investing heavily in Canada amid the global push to refashion the auto supply chain around electric vehicles. LG Energy Solutions Ltd. partnered with Stellantis NV to build a battery plant in Windsor, Ontario, getting as much as C$16 billion in